Human rights violations, killing of men and women activists, arbitration at World Bank's CIADI; finally the company had to leave.

Description

The company in conflict is the Canadian Pacific Rim Mining Corporation, a transnational corporation active in the mining sector. The accusation regards the activities of the company in the Department of Cabañas, in El Salvador. Pacific Rim carried out exploration activities in the area, the effects of which implied that affected communities finally would deny selling their lands and leaving them to Pacific Rim for extractive activities, in view of the damages that the mining could have provoked. Indeed, a report about the mining project El Dorado from the International Union for the preservation of Nature, confirmed these fears, and demonstrated the risks of environmental impacts such as access to water reduction, water pollution, and impacts on agriculture and health. The intention of Pacific Rim Corporation is to exploit a gold mine in Cabañas, and the pressure it exerted for this aim generated conflicts, increased social divisions, and prompted threats and violence against the opposition to the project. These events, including the murder of several environmental activists, among others still need to be dealt with in depth. Pacific Rim, despite its failure to provide the required studies and reports, strongly denied these allegations and demanded 301 million dollars to El Salvador before the World Banks’ ICSID Tribunal. This proceeding has however disregarded the human and people’s rights of local populations, against article 3 of the Declaration of Universal Human Rights and several more articles of the of the environmental laws of El Salvador, many connected regulations, as well as the El Salvadorian Constitution.

History of the conflict The mining site of El Dorado is located in the municipality of San Isidro, department of Cabañas, at 65 km east from San Salvador, and with one of the highest poverty rates of the country. Humid subtropical forests compose the area, and in the past it has been seldom used for occasional small-scale mining and underground mining. Forty years after the exploitation of the El Dorado mine between 1948 and 1953, in 1993, Mirage Resource Corp. began drilling underneath the mine. Roughly 46.000 of solid rock were drilled, mainly to extract gold and silver. Since 2002, Pacific Rim became responsible for the project and commenced procedures to obtain concessions allowing the exploitation of the deposit [1]. Local communities were never in favour of the project, given the environmental impact this would have in their territory. Although the company ensured that the water supply would not be affected, it was estimated that the exploitation would require more than 36.000 litres per hour (more than 10,4 l/sec). During the exploration activities some negative impacts were already visible, such as the reduction of accessibility to fresh water or the contamination of some watercourses, which affected the health of inhabitants and livestock. The Environmental Committee of Cabañas reported that 10 springs of natural water draught close to the explorative operations sites. This information was double-checked and confirmed by the Ministry for Natural Resources. A part from the cyanide used for processing gold, Salvadorian investigators found concentrations of arsenic way above what for example allows Canada in two rivers close to the project area.

The extended local opposition was confronted by groups that benefitted from the company’s presence, who, according to a report [2], was paying some Mayors in the region to foster “local activities with the objective of gaining local consent to the project”. These activities divided and polarized the local population, and increased instability and insecurity. After initial threats to defenders of the local population, who were there since 2006, following the suspension of the project two years later violence escalated. In the summer of 2009 there were the first murders and threats, which continued the following years. As of today, at least half a dozen deaths among those resisting the projects have been related with the presence of Pacific Rim. The Architecture of Impunity Pacific Rim accuses the Government of El Salvador of denying the concession of exploitation of the El Dorado mine to the company because this refused to bribe the President Tony Saca. The opposite version, however, goes that Pacific Rim did not comply the necessary requirements to obtain the licence: it never completed the viability study, it never confirmed having acquired the property of the pertinent lands nor the authorization for its exploitation, and finally it never had its environmental impact evaluation approved.

At first the company tried to benefit from the Free Trade Agreement between the US, Central America, and the Dominican Republic (CAFTA-DR), and moved its subsidiary in the Cayman Islands (where it got more favourable fiscal conditions). Although this fiscal strategy did not work in the end, they could access the World Bank tribunal, the International Centre for the Settlment of Investment Disputes (ICSID), thanks to a clause in El Salvadorian law (after that it was amended) that allowed companies to recur to arbitral tribunals. The company, recently acquired by Oceana Gold, an Australian-Canadian mining company involved in similar conflicts in the Philippines, sued El Salvador for 301 million dollars – the profit they esteem they lost as a consequence of the exploitation permit denial.

To the cost that the claim will entail for El Salvador, one needs to add what the Government spends for defence, which is estimated to be around five million dollars. Moreover, and despite the fact that the transnational corporation uses and argument the fact that its activities would entail a benefit for the country in terms of employment and development, the financial structure of Pacific Rim allows it to avoid paying taxes in El Salvador. Several public figures, such as the Salvadorian Human Rights Ombudsman, have expressed their concern with the events and evidenced the relation between the victims and the activities in which Pacific Rim is involved. However, the intellectual culprits have not yet been identified.

Attempts of access to Justice The local opposition to the project ended up generating a national movement against mining. Hundreds of communities and people have joined the Mesa Nacional Frente a la Minería Metálica (National Roundtable Against Metallurgic Mining), which has succeeded in gaining international recognition and support, and made El Salvador the first country of its hemisphere to suspend metallurgic mining. In 2008 and 2009, both the incumbent and elected Salvadorian presidents agreed publicly to deny the extension of the exploitation licence to Pacific Rim. More recently, the new president Sanchéz Cerén even declared that: “mining is not viable in El Salvador”. [3] After the wave of murders related to the company’s activities, several lawsuits were filed before the Public Attorney of the Republic and the Attorney for the Defence of Human Rights in El Salvador. But given the evident lack of investigation, the case was presented before the Interamerican Commission of Human Rights, which in one proceeding ordered the Government of El Salvador to adopt immediately the necessary precautionary measures to guarantee the security of those opposing the project. [4] What Justice could do: an opinion from the PPT In a hearing that was held in Geneva in June 2014, the Permanent People’s Tribunal (PPT) listened to the testimonies of Saul Baños, of the Mesa Nacional Frente a la Minería Metálica of El Salvador. In line with the evidence brought before the judges by this witness, the Tribunal recognized the actions of the transnational corporation as another example of violations of human and people rights. In line with its full judgement of Madrid, in May 2010, and just a few months before the session that was subsequently held in Mexico in December 2014, the PPT underlined once again how transnational corporations, including Pacific Rim, systematically violate human and peoples’ rights to their own profit. In the same line, the PPT recognized in this widespread practice the current shortcoming of international law, namely the impossibility of accessing justice and obtaining a remedy that is increasingly becoming an unbearable burden for affected communities, as well as for the laws that are supposed to give them shelter. In the same spirit, the PPT acknowledged the necessity to improve international legislation, including through a binding treaty on transnational corporations, and/or a peoples’ treaty, in order to hold transnational corporations accountable for their actions.

Development of a network/collective action Development of alternative proposals Involvement of national and international NGOs Lawsuits, court cases, judicial activism Media based activism/alternative media Objections to the EIA Official complaint letters and petitions Public campaigns Street protest/marches Presentation to the case to the Permanent Peoples Tribunal

The project has been stopped given the existence of cases of human rights violations and deaths of members of the opposition, however and despite the recommendations from the IACHR, the assassinations have still not been investigated. Maybe the most evident success was the de facto moratorium on metal mining that since 2008 have followed the successive presidents in El Salvador, who have committed not to issue exploitation permits. More than 300 organizations, labour unions and groups of civil society have pushed for this initiative.

Debunking Eight Falsehoods by Pacific Rim Mining/OceanaGold in El Salvador, 2014, report published by the Blue Planet Project, the Council of Canadians, the Institute for Policy Studies, MiningWatch Canada and Oxfam International[click to view]

One of the victims, Dora Alicia Recinos Sorto (32 years of age). Ramiro Rivera was killed on 20 December 2009 and Dora Alicia Recinos Sorto on 26 December. Both were representatives of the Cabañas Environment Committee, a grass-roots organization. [click to view]